Welcome to Medical News Today

Healthline Media, Inc. would like to process and share personal data (e.g., mobile ad id) and data about your use of our site (e.g., content interests) with our third party partners (see a current list) using cookies and similar automatic collection tools in order to a) personalize content and/or offers on our site or other sites, b) communicate with you upon request, and/or c) for additional reasons upon notice and, when applicable, with your consent.

Healthline Media, Inc. is based in and operates this site from the United States. Any data you provide will be primarily stored and processed in the United States, pursuant to the laws of the United States, which may provide lesser privacy protections than European Economic Area countries.

By clicking “accept” below, you acknowledge and grant your consent for these activities unless and until you withdraw your consent using our rights request form. Learn more in our Privacy Policy.

Please accept our privacy terms

We use cookies and similar technologies to improve your browsing experience, personalize content and offers, show targeted ads, analyze traffic, and better understand you. We may share your information with third-party partners for marketing purposes. To learn more and make choices about data use, visit our Advertising Policy and Privacy Policy. By clicking “Accept and Continue” below, (1) you consent to these activities unless and until you withdraw your consent using our rights request form, and (2) you consent to allow your data to be transferred, processed, and stored in the United States.

Get the MNT newsletter

Email an article

You have chosen to share the following article:

How elderberries can help you fight the flu

To proceed, simply complete the form below, and a link to the article will be sent by email on your behalf.Note: Please don't include any URLs in your comments, as they will be removed upon submission.

We do not store details you enter into this form. Please see our privacy policy for more information.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 75 million adults in the United States have high blood pressure.

In 2014, high blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause of death for more than 410,000 people in the U.S. Despite the dangers of this health condition, only about half of the people living with hypertension have their blood pressure under control.

A new approach to hypertension control

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA developed a home-based program to improve hypertension control rates at a lower cost than traditional office-based programs. The results feature in the journal Clinical Cardiology.

The team of researchers enrolled 130 people into the program, whom they recruited from a Brigham primary care clinic and the Brigham's Watkins Cardiovascular Clinic. At the time of recruitment, the participants' blood pressure was not under control.

The researchers taught the participants how to use a Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure device and instructed them to measure their blood pressure at home twice daily in duplicate.

The program helped 81 percent of the participants bring their blood pressure under control in less than 2 months.

"This is a striking result, especially given the very short time frame in which control was reached: an average of 7 weeks," says Dr. Naomi Fisher, director of Hypertension Services and the Hypertension Specialty Clinic at the Brigham.

How does it work?

Researchers combined several innovative strategies to create the program. Firstly, the Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure device automatically transmitted the measurements into the electronic medical records of the participants.

Each individual also had access to nonphysician "patient navigators" who had received training in how to use specially designed clinical algorithms. Specialists developed these algorithms, which help assess the person and ensure that they are receiving the correct dosage of medication.

Although this pilot study produced excellent results, the team hopes to be able to scale up the program in the near future to make sure that the method will continue to work over a more extended period and that it can be effective in other groups of people.

The researchers estimate that this new approach will significantly reduce the costs of hypertension control and prevent the risk of dangerous health conditions relating to high blood pressure.

"Development of innovative solutions to manage hypertension effectively and efficiently, and thus reduce the cardiovascular risk burden in larger populations, is critical. Organizations can and should develop and adopt innovative technologies to create sustainable solutions for the control of hypertension," concludes Fisher.

2019 Healthline Media UK Ltd. All rights reserved. MNT is the registered trade mark of Healthline Media. Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.